Giving Gifts

Todd: Do you feel pressure to get certain gifts for your kids?

Aimee: I ... sometimes. Sometimes. Thankfully they ... it's not ... there's not too much pressure where we live right now, so I don't feel too much pressure and I also work hard to fight against it. Yeah. Every year I tell myself, "OK, they're so young. We have so much stuff already. We don't need to go crazy with gifts. Just get one or two" and we do that and then last minute is like "Oh, no! We don't have many gifts" and then we end up buying a few more, so... We're not as bad as we could be. There's not as much pressure as there could be.

Todd: Yeah. I'm lucky in that I live in Japan. You know, we both teach in Japan. So my family's in America, so Christmas usually always falls like the day after we finish school, so I can't actually make it home in time for Christmas, which is awesome because then I don't have to buy gifts for everybody. And I don't mind ... its not the money. I don't mind spending the money, but I really don't like shopping, and I hate having ... I have a huge family. Huge!

Aimee: Right.

Todd: So the thought of having to buy 20 different gifts!

Aimee: It's a lot of gifts.

Todd: Oh, really it's not the cost either, it's just I'm too lazy to think of "Oh, what sweater can I buy this person or ..." it's not my thing. And I don't want gifts and I don't want to give gifts.

Aimee: Well, you know that's fair.

Todd: How about you? Are gifts still something special for you?

Aimee: I'm not ... I'm not very good at it. I'm trying to improve cause I know a well-thought-out gift can mean the world to someone, so I'm trying to improve. Yeah, but I'm not the best. I don't mind, I'm not like. I won't fall out with someone if they don't get me a present. I'm not like that.

Todd: Well, like, I like getting people birthday gifts, I have to admit that. Birthday gifts I like. It's just having to buy twenty, thirty gifts within a one-month period to me just seems obscene.

Aimee: I know, and that's the pressure people are under cause that's the way it is, isn't it? And it's always ... it's always the mothers of the family that have to do it as well right? They're the ones that have to make sure they buy all the gifts for everyone, so they feel they have so much to do. That mental list of everything, and everyone they have to buy for, so of course they have to organize it, so they maybe start earlier, right, and taking advantage of things like Black Friday and Cyber Monday are manageable ways to deal with that load.

Todd: You've changed my mind. I was very anti-both but now that you put it that way, maybe you're right.

Aimee: I don't know.

Todd: Let's go!